With
the news out
everywhere that the Boston Red Sox have filed a petition with
the city of Boston to rename Yawkey Way, a road outside Fenway Park
named after
Tom Yawkey, who reportedly resisted integration efforts in the late
1940s and
early 1950s. The goal is to restore the original name of the street,
Jersey
Street.

Red Sox owner John Henry admitted the Red Sox did not have the
power to
change the name of a city street, but he believed Yawkey Way should be
renamed.
He said was "haunted" by the name.

Born
on February 21,
1903 in Detroit, Tom Yawkey died on July 9, 1976 in Boston.His
mother was an heir to the Yawkey lumber and mining fortune.
When she died, Tom was adopted by his uncle, William Hoover Yawkey,
then-owner
of the Detroit Tigers. At the age of 16, Yawkey inherited $20 million.
Fourteen
years later, he purchased the Boston Red Sox for $1 million in 1933.

It was not the
sale but the buyer who
attracted the attention of Boston's newspaper men, a 30-year-old with a
fortune
estimated to be more than $40-million. They thought he was too young to
have
that kind of money. "He's just a kid," wrote one wizened scribe who
couldn't believe the news.

The
“kid” who at first would be called “Tom” and
later on in his ownership tenure always “Mr. Yawkey,” was heir to an
enormous
timber and mining fortune. He would never own a home in Boston. His
time would
be spent at Fenway Park, in a suite between May and October at Boston’s
Ritz-Carlton, in an apartment at New York’s Pierre, or on a 40,000-acre
game
preserve off the coast of South Carolina where he enjoyed hunting and
fishing
and entertaining guestsbetween October
and April.

Most
thought that Yawkey had been taken, paying more than a
million dollars for one of the worst teams in baseball and a decaying
Fenway
Park.

Over
the next 44
seasons, Yawkey was the face of the franchise, a man who lost an
estimated $10
million attempting to develop championship teams.

The young Yawkey hired veteran Edward
Trowbridge Collins, Sr. the storied former second baseman and veteran
baseball
man as General Manager and Vice President, giving him the
responsibility of
transforming the sorry Red Sox into a contender and raising attendance
at
Fenway Park. The goals seemed wishful thinking especially in the middle
of the
Great Depression, but no one ever accused Yawkey of thinking small.

BILL
WERBER:In May 1933, when I came as a
third baseman
to the Red Sox from the Yankees, I met with Tom Yawkey about salary. It
was for
about $2,000 less than what I'd been earning— big money back then. But
I signed
at his figure. He was the owner.

Then,
in a game , I ran after a high foul ball into the Yankee dugout. I
missed the
first step and went down on my back in the dugout with all the Yankees
hollering at me.But I caught the ball.

After
the game was over, Johnny Orlando, the clubhouse boy, said that Mr.Yawkey wanted to see me in his office.

“Bill," he said
to me, “that was
the damndest catch I’ve seen in quite a while: you lying on your back
with all
those Yankees yelling. I am putting the money you wanted back in your
contract.”

MONSIGNOR
THOMASJ.DALY: I was an office boy in the front office from 1942 until
1946. I
worked from 10 in the morning until the conclusion of the game for
$2.50 a
game. For a doubleheader I got $3.75.

I met
Tom Yawkey.To an office boy he was
rather formidable, of course. He would come every day to the ballgame
and speak
with Mr. Edward Collins, the Vice- President/General Manager. Mr.
Yawkey was
rather relaxed in the way he dressed, high informal.

Fenway
Green was the color they used in the ballpark. It came from a paint
company in
Malden, Mass. There was acommotion when
they announced that they weren’t going to produce that paint any more,
that
green.

So Mr.
Yawkey promptly bought the paint
company. That made sure that that famous green would continue.

BOO
FERRIS:I was a rookie pitcher. My
first-year salary
was seven hundred dollars a month.Since
I was there five months in ’45, I got $3,500.

After
the season was over, Mr. Yawkey
called me into his office. I wasn’t nervous.He was an easy man to talk to.He handed me a check – a bonus -$10,000.

I’d thought I had robbed Fort Knox.I took the check to the bank back in my hometown of Mississippi,
where I
grew up.

MEL
PARNELL: It truly impressed me as a rookie pitcher to see Mr. Yawkey on
the
field taking batting practice with us.I
didn’t see him hit any balls out, but he got some close to the wall.
The kids
who worked around the ballpark would shag flies for him. When he was
done, he
would give each one a twenty-dollar bill.

The
Red Sox's longtime
owner was never enthusiastic about night baseball. As The
Boston Globe's Hy Hurwitz reported, "Yawkey is strictly in
the baseball business" and added that Yawkey didn't "believe in
fashion shows, nylon hosiery, door prizes and other nonsense."

Finally,
bowing to League pressure, Yawkey agreed to 14 night games, two with
each
American League team. The Red Sox became the last club in their league
to play
under the lights at home.

In
1947, Fenway Park seating capacity increased by 500 to 35,500 – the
first
increase from 1912’s 35,000.More
importantly, arc lights were installed making the BoSox the 13th
big
league team to light up its home park. That same year, The
two-hundred-and-forty feet wide left field wall was painted with
multiple coats
of green paint. Tom Yawkey gave the green light to cover up advertising
billboards. It was then that the nickname "The Green Monster" was
first heard.

One
thing Tom Yawkey held firm to was not integrating his Red Sox. Each
season, his
team had routinely received a waiver from the Boston City Council
permitting
them to play Sunday baseball. Now Councilman Isadore Muchnick, who
represented
the Mattapan section of Boston,
teamed with African-American journalist Wendell Smith.They had an offer for Tom Yawkey that they
knew he could not refuse. A trade, of sorts.

For the BoSox to keep the long-held waiver
going, the team would have to allow three black baseball prospects to
try out
at FenwayPark.

Yawkey, as the story was reported
later, very
reluctantly agreed to the tryouts of Jackie Robinson, Marvin Williams
and Sam
Jethroe but only the condition decisions about them would be the
province of
his baseball people.

Black
ballplayers from the Negro Leagues from time to time hadplayed at Fenway when the Red Sox were on the
road. The color barrier was firmly in effect at this time, but owners
thought
nothing of picking up some spare change through this business
arrangement. Now
they would have chance to break the big club’s color line at FenwayPark,
or so was the understanding.

April 16, 1945 began damp and drizzly. At
about 10:00 A.M. Muchnick and Smith were in the stands watching as the
tryout
was getting underway.Just back from
army service in World War II, Jackie Robinson was set to play with the
Kansas
City Monarchs in the Negro League that season.Marvin Williams was a member of the Philadelphia Stars. Sam
Jethroe was
an outfielder for the Cleveland Buckeyes. Red
Sox Manager Joe Cronin sat
in the stands, according to one account, “stone-faced.'' Eddie Collins,
the
general manager, reportedly was unable to attend the tryout “because of
a
previous engagement.”

Near
the end of their one-hour workout, according to Clifford Keane,
reporter for
the Boston Globe, someone
called out, “Get those niggers off the
field!”

Boston
Red Sox immortal and Coach Hugh Duffy,
78, was one of those who conducted the workouts. Later that year he
would be
inducted into the BaseballHall of
Fame.

“You
boys look like pretty good
players,” he was quoted as saying. “I hope you enjoyed the workout.”Later he remarked: “After one workout, it was
not possible to judgetheir ability."

When the
tryout was over, Jackie Robinson said: “It was April, 1945. Nobody was
serious
about black players in the majors, except maybe for a few politicians.”

According
to United Press
International, Jethroe and Williams “seemed tense and both their
hitting and
fielding suffered.”According
to the Red Sox front office,
the players were not ready for the majors and would not be comfortable
playing
for the team's Triple-A affiliate in Louisville, Kentucky.

According to Sam Jethroe, the entire
experience was “a sham.”The Red Sox
front office would never contact the players.

There was
a
need for players with the abilities of Jethroe, Robinson and Williams.
As the
1945 baseball season began and the war still raged, Major League
rosters were
stocked with not quite ready for prime time players, a few underage
ones and
quite a few who were long in the tooth. But the game went on at FenwayPark
in 1945 and other big league venues, as it had always gone on, only
with white
players.

FRANK
SULLIVAN:I went up from pitching in A –
ball in‘53. I was 23. I saw buck shot
wounds all
over the walls and learned that Ted Williams was out shooting pigeons
in the
park. I heard Yawkey also shot along with him.

In
1959, the Sox became the last team
to break baseball’s color line. It was a dozen years after Jackie
Robinson did
it with the Brooklyn Dodgers. Some claim the racism with the Red Sox
came not
from Yawkey but from his general managers, his managers. That claim
will be
explored in detail in this book.

PUMPSIE
GREEN: I was the first African-American there. The Red Sox got me a
room in a
hotel. I didn’t even know if I had to pay for it or not. I got to meet
Mr.
Yawkey the second day that I was in Boston. He was a very gentle,
short, round
man. He said he wanted to get to know me, and wished me well.

“If
you run into any problems or need any advice on something, you don’t
have to go
to the coaches or manager. Come directly to me,” he said. I thanked
him, and we
shook hands.

My
first night in Boston was July 24. Fenway Park just felt small.Even Minneapolis, where I played for two
years, seemed bigger. There was now more media pressure than ever.“I can’t fail. I can’t make a mistake.” That
was how I felt.

On
Tuesday August 4th,Green, 25, batted leadoff, played second base
and made his Fenway Park debut in the first game of a doubleheader
against
Kansas City.Boston won 4-1.

PUMPSIE
GREEN: There was such a crowd, the park was full. A lot of blacks
wanted to
come to the game. They didn’t have seats, but they were accommodated.
The Red
Sox roped off a corner part of centerfield.

I
got a rousing ovation when I got up to the plate - a standing ovation.I can remember thinking to myself, "I
really don't want to strike out right now. I really want to hit the
ball.” I tripled off the wall.

I
made good friends on that team — Pete Runnels, Frank Malzone.Jackie Jensen and also Ted Williams. They
were fellow Californians. Williams was
one of the nicest guys I've ever met around baseball or any other time.
He'd
say 'Hey,Pumps, let's go warm up.' Me
warming up with Ted Williams. I loved it.

Some
people said he was making a statement. But it wasn’t just he who
befriended me;
it was he and a bunch of the guys. It was just that after the ball
diamond,
they went their way and I went my way.

FRANK
MALZONE: I used to marvel at the way Tom Yawkey came around to say
hello to
everybody. They say he sat up in his box and not only watched our game
but had
two TVs going on watching two other games.This is how much he loved baseball.

BILL
LEE: I pitched all summer and came
in to the ballpark in the winter to get my mail at Fenway Park. Mr.
Yawkey was
always stealing my National Geographics.I had to go up to his office to get them; he
was going through chemotherapy at the time.We had long talks.

Attendance
on July 8, 1976 reached
1‚007‚491, the earliest date to that time the franchise topped the
million
mark. The next day brought the announcement that an ailing Tom Yawkey
had died
of leukemia at age 73 in New England Baptist Hospital. Team ownership
was then
taken over by a trust headed by his widow, Jean.

One
of the most prolific and respected sports journalists
and oral historians in the United States, author of the autobiographies
of
legends Nolan Ryan,Tony Dorsett, and Red Holzman, Dr. HarveyFrommer has
written several books on the Red Sox. .

A
professor for more
than two decades in the MALS program at Dartmouth College, Frommer was
dubbed
“Dartmouth’s Mr. Baseball” by their alumni magazine. He’s also the
founder of www.HarveyFrommerSports.com.